Skaters/Couples who were PCS gifted or ungifted

[icellist]

Another one of those threads XD

Just wondering about some of your thoughts about specific skaters and couples who were continuously given unjust/bad or ridiculously/unreasonably good PCS marks. I'd rather the thread not talk about specific skates in a competition but rather a certain skater, couple, or one of their programs that were not recognized by the judging panel. Also please include which part of PCS was unjust: Skating Skills, Transitions, Performance, Choreography, or Interpretation.

and Please, again, not specific skates. Just skaters or couples or their programs (if you want to talk about transitions and choreography)

Also, can someone differentiate performance and interpretation for me?

[TheIronLady]

The judges never gave the PCS they should have to Mao's Bells of Moscow.

[icellist]

how so? was it the program's transitions or choreography or mao's interpretation/performance?

be specific please

[Moka-Ananas]

Carolina Kostner and Patrick Chan come to mind who often managed to get high PCS although they bombed their programs.

[Jenna]

Carolina Kostner and Patrick Chan come to mind who often managed to get high PCS although they bombed their programs.

"Bombing" a program, though, doesn't always mean low PCS should be given. One can have 2-3 falls, pops, etc. and still deserve good marks for skating skills, choreography, interpretation.

People that come to mind that are undermarked in PCS: Akiko Suzuki, Yukari Nakano, Alissa Czisny (before the 10-11 season), Cynthia Phaneuf at times, Denis Ten

Gifted: Gachinski (only at Worlds, really), Bradley (at US Nats), Samuel Contesti, Miki Ando at times

[Vagabond]

Matthew Savoie had some of the most intricate and difficult Transitions in the sport and should have been given about the same marks as Jeffrey Buttle and Stephane Lambiel. His other PCS marks were low too, but the undermarking for Transitions was particularly egregious.

A couple of years ago, Takahiko Kozuka was given "corridor marks" that resulted in Transitions marks that were lower than they should have been. The same thing happened to Jorik Hendrickx this season.

Evgeni Plushenko was given absurdly high marks for Transitions at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games. At the 2010 Olympics, his Transitions marks were: 8.75 6.00 8.00 8.75 6.00 6.50 7.25 7.25 8.50, which means that some of the judges ranked him higher on that Component than they did Lambiel, Takahashi, and/or Chan.

[bardtoob]

Except for maybe execution, which is held up because the judges don't want to be out of the window, Chan deserves high PCS all the time.

Kostner always receives "Political" Component Scores in every category. She has not been as good as her scores for at least 5 years.

[manleywoman]

Matthew Savoie had some of the most intricate and difficult Transitions in the sport and should have been given about the same marks as Jeffrey Buttle and Stephane Lambiel. His other PCS marks were low too, but the undermarking for Transitions was particularly egregious.

Yup. To me, Matt Savoie is the biggest wuzrobbed in the history of PCS.

And Plushy is the most gifted.

[Marco]

IMO the international judges have been quite generous with Ando and Plushenko and have not been quite appreciative of Abbott, Nagasu, Czisny and Wagner IMO.

[gkelly]

Also, can someone differentiate performance and interpretation for me?

See detailed program component explanations here.

I usually think of everything to do with how the skater relates to the music during the performance as constituting the the Interpretation.

Performance/Execution and Choreography have a lot of different criteria that don't necessarily relate directly to each other.

The overall structure of the choreography in relation to the musical phrasing or music-related theme on a macro scale would come under the Choreography component, and a couple of the Performance/Execution criteria also mention music, so I wouldn't say that every single thing related to music comes under Interpretation.

But I think that everything scored under Interpretation relates to the music.

P/E seems like kind of a catch-all category for everything about the performance that isn't covered under any of the other components.

[RumbleFish]

My problem with current PCS marking is that some skaters' marks never go down even when they screw up badly.

PCS marks should tumble when skaters make multiple errors, but for likes of Chan, Kostner, and Takahashi, their PCS never drops. We saw this at 2010 SC for Chan, 2008 Worlds for Kostner, and 2009 GPF for Takahashi. I think highly of these skaters' skills and think they should get high PCS if they perform well, but I cannot stand them getting held up even when they mess up.

For Ando, it is a different story. She always gets absurdly high PCS despite doing nothing that deserves such marks.

[Amy03]

The judges never gave the PCS they should have to Mao's Bells of Moscow.

i agree mao never get the pcs score that she deserved for her bells it really was a masterpiece and i really think that she interpreted the music well, I remember seeing it on the Olympics and i instantly fell in love with the program it diffidently deserved more... I know that mao isn't the best actress on the ice but her using her whole body and the transitions were enough to make this program something special well actually just skating to such dark and different kind of music was amazing in itself..

[julieann]

In regard to PCS (and thanks gkelly for posting that) I think some people assume judge's scores should plummet from what would have been maybe an 8 or 9 to a 5 or 6 just because of a fall or stumble and that's not realistic either.

Out of a 4 1/2 minute program hitting a skater that hard for a one-two second mistake is just as harsh. If you had good Choreography and good interpretation but bad execution that particular day the PCS numbers should reflect that accordingly based on that days competiton.

[julieann]

My problem with current PCS marking is that some skaters' marks never go down even when they screw up badly.

PCS marks should tumble when skaters make multiple errors, but for likes of Chan, Kostner, and Takahashi, their PCS never drops. We saw this at 2011 SC for Chan, 2008 Worlds for Kostner, and 2010 GPF for Takahashi. I think highly of these skaters' skills and think they should get high PCS if they perform well, but I cannot stand them getting held up even when they mess up.

For Ando, it is a different story. She always gets absurdly high PCS despite doing nothing that deserves such marks.

Do you mean 2010 SC for Chan? My biggest question about Chan in 2010 SC is do judges mark off for fall on jumps in PCS or only in GOE and if so where? Falls on jumps are not clearly defined except for the manditory deduction.

[RumbleFish]

Do you mean 2010 SC for Chan? My biggest question about Chan in 2010 SC is do judges mark off for fall on jumps in PCS or only in GOE and if so where? Falls on jumps are not clearly defined except for the manditory deduction.

Thanks for the heads up. I meant 2010 SC for Chan and 2009 GPF for Takahashi.

IMO, errors like falls, step-outs, two-footing, and cheated jumps should have negative impact on PCS marks. Afterall, how can skaters peform choreography or display skating skills when they are cleaning off the ice with their butts? Likewise, noticeable mistakes takes the air out of programs and enthusiasm among the crowd.

[gkelly]

do judges mark off for fall on jumps in PCS or only in GOE and if so where? Falls on jumps are not clearly defined except for the manditory deduction.

Falls on elements absolutely get reflected in the GOEs. The required reduction is -3, so that will almost always be the final GOE except in rare cases if there was enough of the element before the fall that would have had the element on the plus side (e.g., fall on last jump of a combination, end of otherwise good spin or step sequence).

There's no requirement for falls to be reflected in the PCS. My impression is that many judges will not penalize one fall that doesn't disrupt the program for more than two or three seconds, but if there are multiple errors resulting in the overall impression of a sloppy performance, that will be reflected under Performance/Execution. After all, visible errors such as falls and stumbles are not compatible with the "Clarity of movement" criterion for that component.

Still, a skater who is generally very refined but spends 10 seconds out of 4+ minutes making or recovering from errors might deserve higher marks for that criterion vs. another skater who makes no visible mistakes but is generally lax on posture, body line, blade placement, etc., for the whole 4+ minutes.

[julieann]

Falls on elements absolutely get reflected in the GOEs. The required reduction is -3, so that will almost always be the final GOE except in rare cases if there was enough of the element before the fall that would have had the element on the plus side (e.g., fall on last jump of a combination, end of otherwise good spin or step sequence).

There's no requirement for falls to be reflected in the PCS. My impression is that many judges will not penalize one fall that doesn't disrupt the program for more than two or three seconds, but if there are multiple errors resulting in the overall impression of a sloppy performance, that will be reflected under Performance/Execution. After all, visible errors such as falls and stumbles are not compatible with the "Clarity of movement" criterion for that component.

Still, a skater who is generally very refined but spends 10 seconds out of 4+ minutes making or recovering from errors might deserve higher marks for that criterion vs. another skater who makes no visible mistakes but is generally lax on posture, body line, blade placement, etc., for the whole 4+ minutes.

Thanks, that make sense. I have seen some skaters take a few moments after a fall to compose themselves and some never get back into the program and others (like Chan) who act like nothing happened and if you missed the fall wouldn't have known anything happened. I can see how some judges wouldn't deduct as sever as others.

[briancoogaert]

Carolina Kostner and Patrick Chan come to mind who often managed to get high PCS although they bombed their programs.

Well, Patrick Chan and Carolina Kostner have amazing skating skills, so, even if they don't land every jump, it's beautiful to watch them. IMO.

[Erin]

Matthew Savoie had some of the most intricate and difficult Transitions in the sport and should have been given about the same marks as Jeffrey Buttle and Stephane Lambiel. His other PCS marks were low too, but the undermarking for Transitions was particularly egregious.

I would definitely agree that Savoie's Transition marks were too low, but I never thought he was that undermarked in all of the other components. I thought Matt had interesting programs and wonderful detail to them, but found the use of his arms and lack of line somewhat detracted from the program. His rather introspective performance also hurt a bit. Given that, at a bare minimum I can understand why he didn't get really high marks in Performance/Execution (due to carriage, clarity of movement, precision in delivery and projection) and Skating Skills (some of the areas around sureness of edges, balance, rhythmic knee action). I could agree with his Choreography and Interpretation marks being higher, though.

There's no requirement for falls to be reflected in the PCS.

I believe there was guidance in the initial draft of COP that judges should deduct 0.5 for each fall from the PE mark. In actual experience, judges either didn't do so or may have done so, but it was difficult to see. As a result, the mandatory -1 per fall rule came into effect. I tend to think of that deduction as at least partially reflecting that a fall impacts a program's flow more than some other errors and should have an additional penalty over and above the lost GOE. I would almost think of the -1 deduction as the cost of a "regular" fall on the program. At the same time, sometimes skaters have falls that are significantly more disruptive than the average, multiple falls in the program (which tend to exponentially impact the program's performance), messy mistakes that do not qualify as falls, or simply lose the performance value after making a mistake. In these cases, the impact on the program was more than the required deduction and it makes sense for the PCS to reflect that additional impact. Now as to whether a judge sees it that way or whether that is the way the ISU even wants them to see it, that's a different story.

[nikjil]

It always seemed to me that there are differences between falls that should be relfected in the PC marks. There's what I tended to think of the Kwan fall, a bounce on the butt them up that was never particularly disruptive as opposed to the Butryskaya/Kostner sprawl or face plants that really disrupts the flow of the program. The problem for me with Kostner's marks is that generally her multi-fall programs tend to be accompanied with a complete "deer in headlights" performance quality that never seems to be reflected in her PC marks.